What do you see in this crystal ball?
The
featured image shows
NGC 1514, known as the
Crystal Ball Nebula, observed by the
Gemini North telescope on
Maunakea, in
Hawai'i.
NGC 1514 is 1,500 light-years away and was discovered by
William Herschel in 1790.
This
planetary nebula is formed when a star becomes a
red giant and ejects its outer gas layers.
The ejected shell of gas is heated up by the core of the star to temperatures hotter than the surface of our
Sun: that makes the gas shine, creating
beautiful images like this one.
The slightly asymmetrical shape of the Crystal Ball Nebula reveals a secret: the bright star in the center has a companion.
As the two stars orbit each other with a period of about
nine years, they shape the gas around them.
In about
10,000 - 25,000 years the nebula will be
dissipated by their stellar winds.